Parking Controls Backed

November 24, 1985|By Todd Nelson, Staff Writer

DEERFIELD BEACH — A proposal to sell beach parking stickers only to city residents and to add 400 parking meters near the beach gained a favorable response from commissioners as the basis of a solution to the beachfront parking problem.

Commissioners directed City Manager J. Eldon Mariott to have the city staff study the recommendations, submitted by the Beach Parking Advisory Committee, to see whether they could be incorporated into a new beach parking plan.

Under the proposal, residents who bought a $10 parking sticker for their cars would be able to park in the metered spaces at the beach for free.

The committee`s proposal would not allow visitors to buy parking stickers and would charge them 50 cents an hour to park at beachfront meters.

Commissioners unanimously rejected an ordinance from Vice Mayor Joseph Tractenberg that would have allowed non-residents to buy the parking stickers for $10 and that included no provision for additional parking spaces.

Committee member Frank Cuomo, in urging the commission to vote against Tractenberg`s ordinance, said it would have given non-residents the same parking privileges as residents without making non-residents pay their share of beach maintenance costs.

Residents, in addition to the current $5 sticker fees, altogether this year will pay about $388,000 in property taxes for beach maintenance, Cuomo said.

Cuomo said, ``We`re not trying to deprive anyone of using our beaches. We`re trying to give the guy that pays the bill a little bit of an edge.``

The committee`s plan also suggested eliminating parking along State Road A1A, except for hotel parking, and surveying streets near the beach to determine where to widen them to add additional metered parking spaces.